"What about their polygamous children?"
"Why, they are inferior of course, in many ways, ex necessitate, as the fruits of such a practice always are, and must be. Go to the City Cemetery, and you will find it a perfect Golgotha of infant graves. If not feeble and tainted already in constitution, they must speedily become so; or else all History is false, and Science a slander."
"And yet those we have seen on the road, and about the streets here, seem bright and spry enough."
"No doubt. It is a good climate, and there has not been time enough yet. But, then, have you considered the whole foul brood of downward influences at work here, and what must be the logical result in due season, by the very nature of things? Why, with our population of a hundred thousand souls, we have not a Free School yet in all Utah, and outside of this city scarcely a School-House. Here, we have a few Ward Schools; but the teachers are inferior, and the rates of tuition, cost of books etc., so high, that only the children of the better classes can attend. Brigham Young has a school of his own, in his seraglio grounds, where his numerous progeny are taught music, dancing, and some of the commoner branches; but the great bulk of our rising generation here are growing up in a state of ignorance and superstition so dense, as to be absolutely inconceivable elsewhere. So, too, many of the Saints have two or more sisters for wives, at the same time. Others, again, marry their own blood-cousins, and some even their own step-daughters. And instances exist, where they have had mother and daughter for wives, at the same time. Now, where all this is to end, it seems to me, it is not difficult to predict, unless Nature suspends her laws, and Evil becomes our Good."
"It is certainly very shocking, judge. But what do you propose to do about it?"
"Well, I would do something, or at least try to. I have thought a good deal about it, since I got my eyes open; and, first of all, I would have Congress authorize and instruct the U. S. Marshal here to summon the jurors for the U. S. Courts direct. By some strange oversight, I suspect by Mormon intrigue (for they watch Congress closely, and boast they control it on all Utah matters usually), this was omitted in our Organic Act, and consequently our jury-lists are now taken from the county-lists, which are of course made up by Mormon sheriffs. Therefore, all open and avowed Gentiles, who have any back-bone in them, are left off, and we get nobody in our U. S. jury-boxes even, except Mormons and doughface Gentiles. Of course, such juries won't indict or convict for polygamy, or any other offence worth mentioning, if a Mormon is to be mulcted for it. But if our jurors were summoned by our Marshal direct, out of the whole body of the Territory, as they are everywhere else, I believe, he could take good care to put only reliable citizens on the lists, and thus give us juries that would indict and convict in all necessary or flagrant cases."[10]
"But would the Saints meekly consent to be thus overslaughed, and ignored?"
"Of course, not! The first verdict we got and attempted to enforce, there would be a riot, or threatened riot, and then we would have to fall back on the Military. The Utah Militia, of course, could not be depended on; for it is all officered and controlled by the creatures of the Church. Therefore, we would have to call on the United States, and it would be for Uncle Sam to decide at last. This, of course, would necessitate an increase of troops here; for, if the garrison were small, the Saints might make trouble. But give us a couple of batteries, a regiment of cavalry, and say two regiments of infantry, such as Sherman 'went marching through Georgia' with; and Brighamdom can be made to obey the laws, the same as Dixie, or be ground to powder."
"But, judge, will not the Pacific Railroad solve the problem in a more excellent way—peaceably and quietly—by bringing in such an influx of Gentiles, that Mormonism will be neutralized? This is what we all hope East?"